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Longmont's airport on the verge of an upgrade

The sky's the limit for Vance Brand's new FBO

By Tony KindelspireLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
11/09/2013 07:44:30 PM MST

Updated:
11/09/2013 07:46:08 PM MST

LONGMONT -- Big changes will be coming soon to Vance Brand Municipal Airport. But so far, in the 10 weeks since Elite Aviation took over as the sole fixed-base operator at the airport, the changes have been relatively subtle.

New furniture in the pilot's lounge, in what used to be the Air West Flight Center. The inventory of parts is now kept digitally, rather than by hand. And a motorized cart is now used for moving planes around, rather than the old-fashioned hand cart.

The changes may be subtle, but they're not going unnoticed by those who frequent the airport. And more are on the way, according to Julie Myers, president of the Chippewa Aerospace Group, Elite's parent company.

Fixed-base operators, or FBOs, as they're called in the aviation world, are commercial businesses licensed to operate at general aviation airports such as Vance Brand. Up until this year Longmont's airport had two FBOs: Air West and Twin Peaks Aviation. Elite submitted the winning bid to take over the task of providing service to pilots and planes.

"We were looking west of the Mississippi," said Myers, whose company is headquartered in Conway, S.C. It also operates an FBO in Hopkinsville, Ky.

"We were looking for an airport that preferably had one FBO on the field," she said. "This one had two, so we decided to go ahead and buy them both."

Chippewa is actually a three-pronged company, Myers said. Aside from operating FBOs, it also has a manufacturing arm and a repair and maintenance arm.

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Its arrival in Longmont is huge for Vance Brand, according to airport manager Tim Barth, because it will bring in some things that the airport wasn't able to offer before. Most noteworthy will be Elite's avionics equipment installation and repair facility.

"Right now if you need avionics done you can get some at Rocky Mountain (in Broomfield)," Barth said. "But most are done in Grand Junction."

Myers also said that she plans to add jet fuel storage tanks. Currently, maximum capacity for storage at the airport is 1,500 gallons, meaning many weekends that, by Sunday afternoons, the airport has run out of fuel. Plans are for about five times that amount of storage on-site.

The biggest physical addition to the airport will be a new terminal and hangar building Elite plans to build in the next year-and-a-half. The new 15,000- to 20,000-square-foot building will be in addition to the three hangars the company has now: two on the former Air West property and one that used to belong to Twin Peaks.

The terminal will feature a pilot's lounge, classroom space, a conference room and a kitchen, Myers said. All of those, Barth added, will be welcome additions.

"This will bring us right up into the 1990s," he joked.

Myers said she's still weighing what's to become of the former Twin Peaks building, which sits a couple hundred yards to the east of the former Air West building. She said one of the things being considered is the addition of a pilot's store, a mini version of which is in the current terminal.

So far Elite has hired five additional people since it took over in August, Myers said, and plans are to hire another 10 or so. More will be added after the new terminal is built.

Ultimately, Chippewa will be moving some of its manufacturing to Vance Brand, which should create some more jobs, she said.

Myers and her husband, Chuck -- Chippewa's vice president -- are both pilots and for the moment, they're splitting their time between South Carolina and Longmont. The couple plans to move here, however, in the not-too-distant future, she said.

Barth said Elite coming to Vance Brand is the biggest business change to the airport in decades.

"It changes everything that we do here in terms of customer service, from the general aviation pilot to the business user," he said.

Myers said one of the things she and her team investigated when they were doing their due diligence on Longmont was whether the community was welcoming of the airport and supportive of the economic benefits that it brings. She said she's aware of the controversy surrounding the skydiving operations at the airport, but overall she has found the City Council and the airport advisory board supportive. In turn, she hopes to find ways to get the nonflying public interested and involved in what goes on at the airport. She hopes to start, she said, by showing kids' movies inside the hangars on certain nights this winter.

"This is about service," Myers said. "In all of our divisions, that's always our top priority -- service, from engineering, to manufacturing, to maintenance."

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